This invention relates to a system for monitoring one or more paper processors, and in particular to a method and apparatus for monitoring photocopiers and signaling to the appropriate party information regarding the number of copies made during a predetermined time interval; when a predetermined number of copies have been made; when service is necessary; and calendar events such as when rental agreements or service contracts have expired.
According to the present system, photocopying machines when rented are billed at a per copy rate. This requires that someone at a central billing center must contact each copier user to ascertain the number of copies made over a predetermined time interval. A copier user at the copier site then travels from machine to machine reading the number of copies made over a predetermined period from a copy count meter on each machine. These manually read numbers are then manually transmitted by telephone or postcard to the billing center where the bill for each machine is calculated in accordance with the number of pages reported by the on site meter reader. Additionally, meter readings are used to monitor service contracts and preventive maintenance schedules.
This prior art billing system has not been satisfactory. The manual reading suffers from the disadvantage that often the people who are responsible for reading the meters are too busy to read the meters at the predetermined times. Furthermore, they may improperly read the meter or read correct data and transmit error filled data causing the issuance of incorrect bills requiring further manual labor to recheck the meter as well as correct the bills. This results in a loss of time and money for both the customer and the billing center.
Machine service is also requested manually by the copier user, requiring notification to the service center as to when the machine is down or when preventive maintenance is required. A user must first become aware of the problem and then the user must manually notify the service area of the need for repair or preventive maintenance. This system has also not been satisfactory. Often, users are not aware that a machine is down and/or will often not report a down machine until all of the machines in an office or area are down creating a backlog in the office. Furthermore, when reporting that the machine is down, the reporting person, not having technical expertise, will not be able to correctly diagnose the problem. This may result in the repairman arriving with the improper materials and tools, thus increasing the repair time and down time. This lack of technical expertise also results in service personnel being dispatched on repairs which may be cured by telephone instructions to the copier operator, thus increasing overall repair costs. Additionally, copier operators are often unaware of when preventive maintenance is required in that they are not familiar with the preventive maintenance schedules. Even if aware, they often times will not monitor the machines and notify the service center when the appropriate preventive maintenance is required. Since there is no way of ensuring notice to the central billing and/or service center of a machine reaching a scheduled preventive maintenance usage level or the end of service contract, appropriate responses to these events cannot be undertaken in a consistently timely manner.
A system for automatically monitoring a copier is known in the art from U.S. Pat. No. 4,583,834. This device monitors a number of copying machines utilizing a number of sensors placed on the copier for sensing various operating parameters such as the number of copies made by the machine, machine malfunctions and the amount of toner remaining in the machine. Signals representing these parameters are transmitted to a centralized processor. The count value is transferred to the central processor at predetermined intervals. One of the disadvantages of this system is that it requires a dedicated interface having a complex structure receiving input signals from a plurality of distinct sensors provided within each machine. It also fails to notify a user of specific information such as preventive maintenance and contract termination dates. This system is not suitable for installation in existing machines not expressly designed for the system.
A second photocopier system is known from U.S. Pat. No. 4,497,037 and includes a plurality of terminal devices provided at each copying machine and a central managing unit for managing the terminal devices. Each of the terminal devices receives input signals indicative of a plurality of user identifications of the copying machine and a second input signal indicative of utilization associated with each user at each copying machine. These data signals are stored and later transmitted to a central managing unit. The terminal receives a signal from the copying machine to which it is connected representing the number of copies made by the copying machine and which user made the copies. This information is transmitted to a central unit at a later date. One of the disadvantages of this system is that it does not monitor operating malfunctions of the copier or notify a service center when preventive maintenance is required.
Accordingly, it is desirable to provide a system for monitoring a copying machine which overcomes the shortcomings of the prior art systems described above.